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In my C.L.R. James Memorial Lecture, I recall his arguments for Federation in 1958 and reason that they hold good for regional integration today. I argue that ‘insular independence’ has run its course; and that the regional option is both a survival imperative and the only means of realising the ‘national project’ as understood by those who dreamed and conceptualised it throughout our history.

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Thank you for posting the CLR James lecture. I have recently been re-reading CLR on nationalism and regional identity so for me your lecture was timely reinforcement of many of his ideas. It struck me though that many of the the themes CLR (and you) emphasize have not come very far since I first began working in the Caribbean over 30 years ago. In particular the notions of insularity and the parochialism of politicians stand as impediments to a regional movement. This is something Sonny Ramphal also commented on in his recent Marryshow lecture in Grenada. CLR seemed to have it about right in his insights into the fragility of a political middle-class that conerned itself with material reward and patronage rather than any greater vision of governance and politics. How to transcend this seems to me still to be a major constraint on political and economic advancement.

LOSING CONTROL OF OUR DESTINY I note that Dr. Warren Smith, President of the Caribbean Development Bank, in a speech this week has said the region is ” displaying a distinct lack of agility in side-stepping the confluence of development challenges that give rise to anxiety amongst our people, that is, a generalised sense of losing control of their destiny in a number of critical areas of social and economic life. ”
See report at CARICOM News Network

There has been some disturbing news out of Jamaica in the past week. I make reference here, because there are several lessons in here for (a) present Administrations to study;(b) it is a lesson for those of he younger crowd to take to heart in dealing with public persona and public interest.

The U.S. Embassy in Jamaica called Prime Minister Golding “a two-faced person” trying to pull wool over the eyes of his own people while at the same time trying to curry favour with the Americans–that is why they called him a liar. This type of double dealing seems to be par for the course for the party which now forms the Government of Jamaica.

A story is told, and it is more than apocryphal, that a certain Chief Minister of Jamaica was called by the Labour Adviser (in those days before Permanent Secretaries) to quell a militant bunch of men at the
Department of Labour who were warring over the distribution of work and farm work tickets. When the “lion maned” leader arrived upon the scene, he spoke to the crowd as a father would to his warring children.

However, upon leaving the scene (this heard by a clerk now deceased of the Labour Department) “If de bitch dem give you any trouble, shoot dem”.

But the news also brought information about a certain Minister of Government who, upon the knowledge that he would not be allowed to travel to the U.S,. immediately resigned his Ministerial position. Can you guess why?

” Be Careful What You Do Or Deny Doing Uncle Sam Has Eyes Watching You”.

That was a solar-plexus blow for the present Government, for, who knows what next comes down the pike? At the same time the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica “fingered” our present Ambassador(Ambassadress?) to the U.S. as a “pipeline from the P.M.{“with the most damning words ” PLEASE DO NOT EMBARRASS JAMAICA” when the messenger in her supplicant’s role ought to have known that Embarrassment had already been done to Jamaica NOT by the U.S., heavy though their shoes be!

Several features of this are worth recalling: Our beggarly nature: our view that we can behave like Brer Anancy and people will not see through us and expose us; “one cannot wear long pants when you have not mastered wearing short pants”; what we aver as “good” often smells like decayed fish.

This is a new century (the 21st) and Barack Obama and Cameron are insisting on leadership by good example; by integrity; by old tried and true values ,but many of us in Jamaica, and in the Caribbean have not got the message and think that it will be business as usual.

Let the young and potential leadership be aware:

“Courage and toil and service
old yet forever new
these are the rocks that abide the shocks.
and hold through the storm, flint true
the scoffer may laud it an hour on Earth
and a LIE may live for a day,
but, TRUTH and HONOUR and MANLY WORTH
are things that endure alway”